


but lately I've been feeling strange

by a_secondhand_sorrow



Series: i think there's something wrong with me [1]
Category: I Am Not Okay with This (TV 2020)
Genre: Dina-centric babey!, F/F, F/M, I don't know if Dina and Brad are underage but I'll tag it, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Pining, Premonition, also, basically Dina has superhero senses, canon levels of Dina/brad, dina has powers also au, heightened senses, idrk what they are but she Has Them, kind of, low-key pining, think Spiderman but not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23345302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_secondhand_sorrow/pseuds/a_secondhand_sorrow
Summary: For as long as she could remember, Dina had been able to see - sense -feelthe future.
Relationships: Dina/Bradley Lewis (referenced), Dina/Sydney Novak
Series: i think there's something wrong with me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679074
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	but lately I've been feeling strange

**Author's Note:**

> some of the scenes I took dialogue directly as it was in the show, and in others, I was too lazy/one-track minded about this au to check the actual dialogue taking place in the show and wrote my own take on the interactions. 
> 
> title from little league by conan gray!

For as long as she could remember, Dina had been able to see the future. 

Okay, well, no. Not _see_ the future. Sense the future, if you could even call it that. Or sense like, three seconds ahead. But maybe that gave it more credit than it was worth. 

Whenever Dina woke up in a bad mood for no reason, which was pretty rare, bad things happened that would totally justify a bad mood. She’d told her mother this when she was younger, on the day she broke her collarbone. Her mother said that her attitude was the reason the bad things happened; believing it to be true made it true. If you’re happy all the time, her mother said, then happy things will happen to you. And ten-year-old Dina, like a moth to a flame, took to that idea. 

Most days, it seemed to work. She wasn’t exactly the cheeriest person around, but no one could deny her happiness. Her father took to calling her a “little ray of sunshine” while her sister took to kicking her out of her room when she got a little too positive. She may not have had pep, but she made up for it with a genuity no one could doubt. And the days where she woke up with that sinking, gnawing feeling that something bad would happen - well, she pretended it didn’t. She had to be happy all the time, or bad things would happen. She wouldn’t bring misfortune upon herself. 

Most days, it seemed to work. 

One day, when she’d tried to act happy, her (former) best friend told her she was too cheery all the time. She didn’t listen, she said, only thought about herself. She wasn’t real enough. And that best friend became her former best friend. 

And one night, she awoke with a jolt like she’d begun falling in her dreams, but her stomach never picked itself up again. She could hear voices in the kitchen, so in an attempt to calm her nerves, she eased out past her bedroom door just in time to hear her father whisper to his mother that he’d lost his job. 

And when her mother picked her up from school, she knew a second before her mother told her that that was her last year at the school, that they were moving, and she knew that that’s what the dark feeling in her gut had been trying to tell her since she woke up. 

Upon their move to Brownsville, she found she liked sports. Basketball, soccer, tennis, any team that would take her. Her advisor had suggested them as a way to burn off energy, but she wasn’t too bad at them, either. It helped that she knew exactly where every opponent was at every moment and could guess with an eerie accuracy every move they were about to make. She always felt a little...odd when playing. It didn’t feel quite right. It felt like she was doing something wrong, even though all she was doing was sending her environment. 

She had a dream before her first day of school in Brownsville that at the lunch for new students, there’d be a girl sitting there with hair cropped into a pixie cut and no one to talk to. They’d be the only sophomores there at the relatively small lunch, and she’d slide across the seat from her and say…something. And sure enough, with a bright, bubbly feeling just behind her eyes, Dina’s eyes locked onto the girl from her dream at the lunch, and her feet carried her there of their own accord. 

“What type of sacrifice do you think I’d need to make for a milkshake?” She said, dropping her tray down at the table and allowing her body to follow. The girl furrowed her brow. 

“Like, ritual sacrifice?”

“Sure,” Dina replied. “Do you think it’d be a nice, tame, Percy Jackson-esque scraping food into a fire? Or would it require slow-roasting a freshman over a Bunsen burner?”

The girl took a bite of her sandwich - peanut butter, as far as Dina could tell. “Maybe like, that lizard in the advanced bio teacher’s room?”

“I like the way you think,” she replied. She stuck out her hand a moment later. “I’m Dina.”

Her companion took her hand in a surprisingly fine handshake, voice dropping a few notes from where it had been before. “Sydney. Or Syd.”

“Always good to know the names of your accomplices in sacrifice.”

Sydney shook her head. “You really want a milkshake, don’t you?”

“I’d kill a classroom lizard for one.”

“Seems gratuitously violent.”

“I take my milkshakes seriously.”

Syd shook her head again, incredulity taking over her features. Her nose scrunched up just a little, and Dina could suddenly see all of the freckles on her face. She’d noticed them before, but they’d all blurred together. Now, she could see each tiny dot in perfect detail. She wrenched her eyes away as Syd began to say something else. “I mean, my mom works at a diner that sells milkshakes if you want one that badly.” She backtracked, cheeks flushing a little. “But you’d probably have to, like, wait for after school?” She took another bite of the apple. 

“God, it sounds perfect.”

And so she and Syd sat at a booth in her mom’s place of work, splitting a milkshake as they’d do so many times in the future. Dina didn’t know how she knew they would - it was just something she could tell. Just like she could tell that a defender was going to cut in front of her a moment before they did, she knew that she and Syd would end up right there time and time again, and just the thought of that made her smile like Syd smiled when she thought Dina wasn’t looking. 

Sophomore year passed in a blur of essays and all-nighters and milkshakes, and then she and Syd were free to roam the streets of Brownsville as they pleased. Sometimes Syd’s little brother Liam joined them, and Dina secretly loved those times. She’d always been good with kids, since she seemed to know what they wanted to do or talk about, and Liam was no exception. He was a cute kid, always happy to chatter on about armor on superheroes or the benefits of mac n cheese or any other topic that interested him that day. 

“Grown-ups are so boring, you know?” He said to her one day. “They just like the same thing day after day, like they have to pick one thing only. They can _like_ lots of things! And one person, too! I think you and Syd are already getting to be like that. You spend all of your time together, just one person. It’s weird.”

Dina choked out a laugh. She was glad Syd was checking out freeze pops for them while they waited outside; Dina got the feeling she got embarrassed when Liam said stuff like that around her. 

“Maybe you’re right, Liam,” she said, dropping her hand to his head. His curls always felt smooth and soft under her palm, making her weirdly nostalgic for when she used to do her hair with her mom all the time. “But wouldn’t you like to be stuck with your sister if you had to be stuck with anyone?”

“Definitely,” he said, and Dina felt her heart warm a little at his honest admission. Syd appeared a moment later and he was quickly distracted by the blue freeze pop in his hand. 

She’d be lying if she said that Syd’s reaction to having Liam around, her tone of voice as she said “Goob” and her gentle hand on Liam’s back and the smile she smiled while looking down at him, didn’t have something to do with her enjoyment of their time with him. 

Their time together sans Liam, though, was more than nice, too. They’d truly just started hanging out because they were the new kids, but Dina had a feeling that they would have been friends anyway. They were too close to not have some kind of innate connection. 

Junior year was a harsher year in general. Even Dina’s normal happiness was tested day after day, just from the course load and social stratosphere. 

Of course, there was a day when she woke up with a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she tried to mask it. Syd could tell something was wrong. After school, they walked in the direction of the supermarket, but Dina had a sudden tingle of pain run up her spine. She grabbed Syd’s arm and dragged her towards the closest bench, the heavy feeling in her stomach growing so that she wondered if she’d throw up for a moment. She could feel her arm vibrate slightly like it might when her phone was underneath it, but her phone was in her backpack. Syd followed her and sat when Dina tugged her down. 

“Are you okay?” she said. 

“Yeah,” Dina said. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just kind of...lightheaded...”

She trailed off as Syd’s phone began to ring. She got a sudden, unbidden mental image of a dark basement, but it was gone and forgotten as soon as she’d seen it. Sydney looked away from Dina, still frowning slightly, and swiped the call open. 

“Hello?” Syd said, and suddenly Dina knew what the person on the other end would say before they said it. Her hand found Syd’s arm, trying to instill her with some kind of strength, as though she could protect her from the contents of the call. 

And as Syd learned that her father had hung himself in her basement, Dina took her hand and watched as her expression shifted from neutral to panicked to shocked. Dina would learn, later, that there was no note when Mrs. Novak found him, that her best friend would have no closure whatsoever. She didn’t know how she knew Mr. Novak had even died before the caller had said it; she just knew that she had to keep her touch on Syd, to make sure she was still alive and physically okay. And when Syd hung up on the call finally and her expression shifted, Dina felt the despair reflected on her face. When Syd turned her rapidly tear-filling eyes to Dina, her own eyes become teary. She didn’t pull her in for a hug since she didn’t know if that would be the right thing. She just tried to be there and hold her hand and she cried a little bit herself. She didn’t want Syd to feel alone like Dina knew her friend felt at so many times; she wanted her to know that she was feeling similar things and that she was allowed to show her sadness. She didn’t think Syd always knew that. 

That overshadowed most of everything in Junior year, but eventually, summer came and went again. It felt weird without Mr. Novak there to push puzzles on them and tell wandering jokes with no punchline, but she knew it wasn’t as weird for her as it was for Syd. Her best friend became even more withdrawn around everyone, but she took comfort in the fact that she knew when to pull her out of her shell and when to leave her in. She got Syd to dance with her on the empty streets one day as school started again, putting one foot after another and another laugh after another, and that felt pretty nice. More than nice, even. A feeling she didn’t have a word for. 

She’d never had a boy be interested in her, is all. And Brad Lewis...he was interested in her and her sudden lack of braces and growing of boobs. 

She’d recount it all to Syd later. In the diner, over a milkshake, of course. “And he’s all like,” in a bad imitation of a male voice, “‘who’s the new girl in town?’ And I was like, ‘shut up. It’s me, Dina.’”

“Right, this is Brad...Lewis?”

Dina shouldn’t have been surprised that Syd was skeptical. She was skeptical of most people. And she didn’t need to have her improved hearing to hear the skepticism in Syd’s tone. “Yeah,” she breathed, thinking of the night before. “He’s sort of sweet, you know?” She continued, ignoring Syd’s quirked eyebrow. 

Bradley - Brad - well, he really was very sweet. Not nice, exactly, but sweet all the same. An absolute knock-out, too. She almost considered calling Syd to moon over him, but Syd had never once shown an interest in talking about boys and she doubted she’d start then. 

One of her friends from her old school told her on Instagram that football boys liked it when you came to their practices. She did, one day. It wasn’t really her cup of tea - she’d given up on playing sports after sophomore year. They took too much time and the intuition was beginning to scare her a little bit - but she definitely enjoyed watching Brad run around in tight pants. He caught her eye a few times and smiled at her laughter. 

She met him at his car after practice, greeting him with a kiss. 

“Come to homecoming with me?” He breathed before she could even say anything about the practice. 

“What?” She laughed, letting her hands rest on his chest. “That was a non sequitur.”

“I know, I know,” he mimicked her laugh. “It’s just, well, this may sound kind of dumb.”

“I’m sure it won’t.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you. And seeing you there today - well, I’ve never had someone come to my practices. And I wanted to ask you before I lost the high of seeing you there.”

Her smile grew. “Well, I’ve never been asked to homecoming before.”

“I guess it’s a night of firsts.”

“Yeah,” she said, moving to hold his head more firmly between her hands. “It is.”

She opened the backseat of his car door and fell back into it, dragging him with her. Some small voice at the back of her head, that feeling she sometimes got, said _night of firsts_ again. She kissed him, only pulling back to whisper “of course I’ll go with you.” She could feel the curve of his smile against her mouth, and she felt it there for quite a while after Brad shut the door to his car, locking them into their own little world. 

It was almost surreal to think of it the next day, sitting across from Syd at her mom’s diner, sharing a milkshake as they always did. 

“And then…he asked me to homecoming,” Dina said.

She opened her mouth as though to say something, but nothing came out. She found her voice half a second later. “Wait… and you accepted?”

“No, I told him to take his washboard abs and chiseled jawline and get out of my face.” For someone who was sarcastic almost every time something came out of her mouth, it seemed to take Syd a second to process the fact that Dina meant the opposite of what she’d just said. Dina laughed, trying to force her way through the feeling that Syd’s disappointed face gave her. ”Yeah. Of _course_ , I said yes.”

She could feel, literally feel, Syd’s eyes on her face as she looked back down. She realized why Syd was studying her so intently a moment later. “Oh my God. You had sex with him, didn’t you?”

Dina just smiled in response, another laugh building. She couldn’t seem to get the words past her lips, but Syd didn’t have the same problem. 

“Holy shit. Holy _shit_ , you gave Bradley Lewis your v-card??” Syd practically spluttered in an undertone. Which, admittedly, was exactly what she’d done, but hearing it laid so plainly out like that was a bit unsettling. She...wanted it, though, didn’t she? She liked Brad, and she liked what he did to her. But she could still feel Syd’s eyes on her face. Damn Syd for always being able to read her like an open book. She kept laughing through Syd’s questions, but eventually, something in her eyes made Dina crack. 

“I really like him, okay?” She finally said. She wanted Syd to believe her. She wanted _herself_ to believe it. 

“No, yeah, sure. I get it.”

“Just give him a chance! Now, c’mon. There’s gotta be someone you sorta like. Just a little.”

She felt a response on the tip of Syd’s tongue, as though she were bursting with the fact, as though she almost planned on saying it. She could feel it, but it rolled away. Syd’s eyes, widened like a deer in the headlights, might have betrayed the answer, but Dina was distracted by the “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well, think about it,” she said firmly. “And maybe we can all go to Homecoming. Like a double date.”

When Brad slid into their booth, bringing with him an air of superiority and several kisses, she knew that Syd wasn’t happy. It didn’t take a superhero to sense it. And with whatever transpired between Syd and Bradley while Dina got ketchup, the air at the table was so stiff and dry that she couldn’t be surprised when Brad’s nose started bleeding. That was just what they needed; an injury. 

Of course, she and Syd would sit at the table again. Between shallow breaths, Syd would breathe “I sort of...hadsexwithStanleyBarber?” and _God,_ didn't that hurt. She wondered if that’s how Syd had felt, and then she realized she should have been happy for her best friend, but what she felt was mostly shock. She told herself it was because she’d fucked _Stanley Barber_ of all people, rather than any feelings she might’ve had herself. 

When the topic of Stan’s sexual prowess (or lack thereof - Syd was never a great liar) exhausted itself, Dina frowned down at her phone.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just - it’s just Brad. We were going to go to the party tonight, but he’s not sure if he’s feeling up to it. With his ankle and all.”

“Oh, well, we, um, we could go? Together?” Dina looked up for her phone, locking eyes with Syd. “If you still wanted to go, you know. I know you were...looking forward to it.”

Dina finally shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

Syd finally allowed herself to smile. “Great. Cool.”

It seemed like the next thing she knew, she and Syd were at the party. Brad had been in a terrible mood, bitching about every little thing all day. She told herself he was worth it, a bad mood and all, but it was honestly nice to be at a party with Syd. Just to have some...friend time. Gals being pals. They hadn’t hung out just the two of them in too long, even if Syd had brushed it off earlier in the day. 

And, when doing her makeup, she knew she didn’t imagine the hitch in Syd’s breath as she applied the cherry chapstick to her lips. 

Weirdness with Stan aside, she was having a fantastic time. Syd seemed to actually be happy, which was a feat those days, and the drink in her hand was starting to numb her mind and make her fingertips tingly in a pleasant way. Their chat on the couch with drinks in hand was awkward enough that Syd didn’t seem to mind when Dina pulled her away to the dance floor. 

“This is my favorite,” she’d said by way of an explanation and apology for Stan. Although discomfort practically radiated off of Syd when Dina stopped them in the middle of the crowd, she didn’t object. 

“C’mon,” she said, basically shouting over the noise. Syd laughed, and Dina would’ve been surprised that she could hear her laughter over the music, but she’d realized before that she could always hear what Syd did, so she didn’t waste too much time dwelling on it. Syd just shook her head and laughed. Dina could feel Syd’s pulse in her fingertips as she grabbed lightly at her wrists.

She couldn’t seem to stop laughing, and the funny faces Dina was making as she got into the music certainly didn’t help. But eventually, persuaded by the music and her best friend, Syd acquiesced and shuffled a bit, which Dina figured was probably the most she’d get. 

She didn’t know if it was the alcohol muddling her brain, but as Sydney started to move more, she found her eyes tracing her every move. They both moved close together, ignoring the ways that one was supposed to dance at a party. With a jolt, Dina realized they were much closer than everyone else. If she’d tried, she could easily pull Syd flush against her body. But of course, she didn’t. Syd’s breath blew across her chin in short, warm puffs. Dina could see the peaks of goosebumps on Syd’s arms even though the room was sweltering. 

The music stopped, but they stood together for a moment, breathing in the same breath. 

And then, of fucking course, Brad arrived. Of _course_ he was the source of the music discontinuing. She was torn between annoyance and fondness at the sight of him; one part of her wanted to go back to the moment before, but the other was desperately glad he was there. 

(She might’ve been afraid to go back to that feeling of dancing with Sydney rather than actually being glad to go back to Brad, but she pushed the thought away.)

He was angry. Unbelievably angry, and for what she didn’t know. He dragged her away - well, he didn’t exactly drag her away. He sunk his claws into the air around her and tugged, bringing any of the high of before and the flush of alcohol away from her. So she followed as though she were a puppy on a leash, leaving Syd behind with a heavy heart. 

He was so goddamn angry she was half surprised he didn’t hit her. He only hit the wall, but that seemed to hurt, and he was “already injured enough.” Brad, his voice low and steady like it had been when he’d breathed out an invitation to homecoming, asked for his jacket back. Dina’s eyes found the moose on the ceiling just as he asked, but her eyes snapped back on him. 

His voice had been just as low, but it held none of the affection, none of the gentle tone. 

“Fine,” she said, managing to keep her voice cool even as her eyes welled with tears. The jacket slipped off her shoulders easily, and he snatched it from her hands as though disgusted by the thought of touching her. Only when he was gone, the door slammed behind him, did she allow herself fall back onto the bed and let the tears fall past her eyelashes. 

She could tell it was Sydney as soon as the door peeked open. Her breaths were shallower than anyone else she’d met, but surprisingly steady considering the circumstances. One quick glance to her right, even with tear-filled eyes, confirmed that it was Syd. She had a gentle way of moving that made quiet little sounds across the carpet. Every nerve in her body seemed to recognize the moment that Syd’s body came in contact with the mattress. Heat radiated from her thighs and shoulder, comforting and unprecedented. She must have put her sweatshirt back on. 

“Hey,” Syd whispered, her voice catching on nothing in particular.

Dina didn’t remove her eyes from the ceiling. She sniffed.

“You’re crying because...there’s a dead animal hanging over your head?”

She’d honestly begun to tune out the taxidermy moose, but she wasn’t quite ready for one of Syd’s jokes. 

“Hey, talk to me,” she whispered. Dina felt the barest shift of Syd’s forearm closer to hers. “What happened?”

Music pounded from the main party, echoing in Dina’s head like a dull headache. She sniffed, lifting her shoulders in a half shrug. She hated how her voice still wobbled. “It’s just Brad,” she finally said, not moving her eyes from their point on the ceiling. “We got in this - this _huge_ fight, I honestly don’t even know what it was about.”

Syd’s face was tilted on its side, angled closer to hers. When she spoke, Dina could feel her breath against her tearstained cheek. “That happens with me and my mom a lot.”

She sounded almost - almost _eager._ Like she was excited that she could finally try and help Dina rather than the other way around. Like she was glad that she could relate to whatever Dina was feeling. The thought made something bloom in her stomach. She swallowed harshly against the feeling. She could tell that Syd’s eyes were at the corner of her jawline and the bob of her throat before they turned back to the ceiling.

“And then he-” her voice broke. “He asked me for his jacket back.” She angled her head towards Syd, the movement making the pillow crinkle under her. Syd did the same and met her eye barely a second later.

Dina turned onto her side, far past the point of caring about her hair or makeup, and cradled the pillow between her head and arm without breaking that eye contact. Syd mirrored her, lowering herself so that they were face-to-face, barely any space between them. Warm breath blew onto her own lips. “Well, look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to wear that hideous jacket ever again.”

The corners of her lips quirked up a bit at Syd’s joke, some kind of squeaky laugh escaping her throat, and Syd’s followed suit.

“Guess you’re stuck with me.”

She felt very lips curl into a smile. “I wanna be stuck with you,” Dina admitted, her voice low and catching on the unshed tears making a home in her throat. Syd’s mouth mirrored her own. 

Dina knew it was coming a moment before it did. She didn’t know how she knew, just like she didn’t know how she knew anything else. But she didn’t pull away or sit up. She was content to wait for it to happen, to monitor the shift in Syd’s expression and to get distracted by the warm chestnut color of her eyes. She’d never noticed that color before. She had thought they were brown like her own, but they were warmer, a little more golden. Her smile deepened, muscles in her face pulling tight.

Syd’s breath hitched a bit, but she was still smiling, even as her head jerked up almost involuntarily as though she’d moved innately. Then Syd leaned over with the support of one arm braced across the bed and pressed her lips to Dina’s. The sudden, warm pressure of them set a contrast in Dina’s brain, like a flint against a stone. The sudden fire in her brain almost got her to reciprocate. She had not sensed before that she would have wanted to reciprocate. Some new, sudden part of her wanted to do more than smile against Syd’s lips; it wanted her to move, to part her lips and keep kissing her, kiss her back, to press Syd against the cushions like Brad had done to her not so long ago. But that sudden part of her brain scared her. She pulled back, instead, and sat up. Her drinks had muddled her head; she knew she was still dating Brad, even though they’d fought. It was...wrong, wasn’t it? To want to kiss her best friend? Especially when dating golden boy Bradley Lewis.

“Syd, we’re just drunk,” she said, her voice too loud for the eerie silence of the room. Syd sat up as well. Even with the drinks and the low light, Dina could see every freckle on Syd’s cheeks.

“Oh, yeah,” Syd said, her cheeks rapidly flushing. Her voice had pitched upwards, an expression Dina couldn’t decipher on her face. “Sure, I didn’t mean, um.”

Panic flaring in her gut, Dina attempted to keep it out of her voice “Um, it’s just not-”

Syd sat for another moment before she was all motion. Dina could swear she felt the ground vibrate for a moment as Syd stood.”Yeah, no, totally, it’s fine! It’s fine, really, I’m just, I’m, uh,” it was almost painful watching Syd try to come up with an excuse. She gestured vaguely outdoors. “I’m just, uh, getting a ride home with Stan, so, um.” 

“Okay?” Dina said, trying to clear her own head with a shake, but Syd was out the door with a shaky smile. It began to close behind her. “Wait, Syd-” but she was already gone, and the unsteady ground went with her.

When she walked out of Chem class on Monday, tracing the same unsteady ground as before that it seemed like only she could feel, she felt the heavy weight of Brad’s jacket once again around her shoulders. She’d almost forgotten about it all morning, even though a few of her sort-of friends had commented on it by her locker in the morning. The only thought she was really capable of thinking was of how the floor had seemed unsteady as Syd rushed out. She’d felt it; she was sure of it. As sure of it as she was sure that Syd was carefully pulling her glances away from Dina. She traced the feeling of the unsteadiness, like the world’s worst earthquake, into the girl’s bathroom. 

Knocking on the only occupied stall door, Dina prayed that it really was Syd and not some random freshman. That would be awkward. 

“Syd? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. Her voice was pulled tight. 

“Well, look, I wanted to. Um, to talk to you?”

“...Okay?”

“Uh. Brad and I talked. He gave me his jacket back.”

“That’s...nice.”

It was clearly sarcastic, but Dina didn’t really care. She had something else on her mind. 

“Look, about the party…”

“Dina, it’s fine,” Syd replied. Dina could see her feet angled awkwardly under the stall door. She frowned. 

“So...we’re cool?”

“Yeah. We’re good.”

“Okay,” she said. She almost turned to go, but at the last moment she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tampon. She slid it under the stall door, bright against the plain and gross tile of the bathroom. “Feel better.”

She could’ve sworn she heard Syd laugh, a slight exhalation of nervous energy she’d held inside of her up until she finally let it out. Dina smiled a little as she left. 

In detention, when Stan and Syd approached her - or pulled her away from Brad, quite rudely, too - she knew they weren’t telling the truth. They were each forcing the words about their “sexcapade” out of their lips like it was something foul to think about (which it, admittedly, was). 

In fact, as she’d been pushed against the wall by Brad, she could’ve sworn she felt something low in her gut just before they came to get her. Something like the bottoming out of your stomach when you drop a glass of water and know it’s going to collide with a harsh tile floor, but distant and larger. That lingering feeling was part of why she pulled away at all; nothing would’ve been able pull her away if she’d really been into it. 

Stan’s plan was, admittedly, ridiculous. But so was the whole, faux-honest situation. She was preparing to have to pull some sort of save, and as her ears picked up a faraway clacking of dress shoes on tile, she poised herself to sneak down the hallway. Summoning several years of former ballet classes that she’d quit when the hobby had become too time-intensive, she tiptoed down the hallway, praying to every deity she could for the principal to not hear her. It came in handy; she made a crashing noise just before he could reach the door. 

It was odd to feel victorious when the deed was done. But she did. She felt...victorious. Like she’d _done_ something, stupid as it was. And so she said “oh, fine,” to Stan and Syd’s offer of a joint. With smoke curling around her fingers like a fond snake, she found it difficult to worry about much of anything. She was high on victory and about one-twelfth of a joint, and she was happy with that. 

When Syd and Stan had dispersed, for the bathroom and fuck knows where, respectively, Dina rested her head back against the lockers and took a deep breath. She could hear, distantly, low voices. Panicked, really. But resigned. Syd’s voice mingled with Jenny’s and Brad’s. She grimaced, resigning herself to retrieval duty. 

Syd was really much more loyal than anyone gave her credit for. She barely hesitated before telling Dina everything about Brad’s betrayal. She’d expected fury to overtake her, or overwhelming sorrow, or _something_. And she surely felt angry, and maybe a little sad. But mostly she felt like her relationship with Brad was fated to end with him not caring about her and doing something insensitive. 

Somehow, seeing the library in ruins made her even angrier than Brad cheating on her had. Even though she’d known something bad had happened completely unrelated to Stanley Barber ever 69ing, the extent of the damage made something harsh and angry rise in her throat so that she thought she might choke. It might’ve been the sudden knowledge that she and Syd weren’t really best friends anymore win the way that they should be, just like her former best friend had once told her. She’d been too self-involved, or maybe Syd had been too self-involved. It just hurt to know that Syd couldn’t bother to tell her the truth. Went out of her way to tell lies with the help of Stanley Barber. 

“What happened, Syd?” she demanded the next day, pulling to a stop in front of the bench where Syd sat. She’d been scribbling away in something but looked up as soon as Dina started to speak. 

“What?”

“I saw the library. I’m not stupid. What really happened?”

It almost seemed to pain Syd - she choked for a moment. “I can’t tell you?”

Dina just looked at her for a long moment. “You asked me to help you steal something and you can’t even tell me?”

“...Yes.”

She knew Syd could read her like an open book, so she didn’t try to explain her feelings. She just turned and walked away. But before she fully could, she turned on her heel again. 

“We’re _best friends,_ Syd. Or at least, we’re supposed to be. Best friends talk. They’re supposed to tell each other everything. But we don’t! We haven’t spoken about anything. We don’t tell each other anything. I just - you should be able to tell me.”

Syd swallowed hard. She looked down at the book in her lap. “I know. I’m sorry. I just - I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

Dina’s eyes roved over Sydney’s face. She nodded after a moment, a small, exasperated sigh leaving her. “Right.” And she finally turned on her heel in favor of heading to class. 

Syd shouted after her, but she pretended she hadn’t heard. 

She never could keep a grudge against Syd, though. And Syd knew it. 

So she shouldn’t have been surprised when she turned up outside of Syd’s house in time for homecoming, as planned. She was weak for Syd. But she did have to blink in surprise as Liam opened the door. 

“Ah, Dina,” he said. “Come in, come in. Syd is still getting ready. Girls, you know?”

“I...do know, yes,” Dina said, fighting back a smile. The kid had always been able to make her smile, she’d give him that. 

He was in rare form, talking on and on. He’d gotten into a fight, apparently, which made Dina’s lips tug downwards, but he wasted no time in assuring her that he was happy with the outcome as his (very tall) crush was now interested in him. She just nodded through his commentary, sending half-hearted glances up the stairs. When she finally saw Syd coming down, she thought her heart might stop for a moment. 

She wasn’t sure if it was the dress or the necklace or the sudden flare of confidence that filled her like a balloon, but Syd looked beautiful. Dina had always known that her best friend was pretty, and what was more, she knew that she was pretty _inside._ Which sounded creepy and either serial-killer-esque or like a Hallmark card. But whatever it was, she was painfully reminded of that feeling that twirled inside of her stomach and refused to stop, that warmth growing in her chest, and her darkening cheeks. 

She smiled at Syd, and Syd smiled back. 

And later, when she and Syd swayed together on the dance floor, she could’ve sworn that another kiss was coming. She _wanted_ another one. Dina desperately wanted another kiss, which was a little terrifying and a little thrilling at the same time. 

“You know, that kiss at the party…”

Syd’s brow furrowed preemptively, as though she anticipated something bad. 

“I didn’t... _not_ like it.”

And slowly, ever so slowly, Syd appeared to let herself hope. That same confidence she had standing on her stairs came back, filling her up. “Yeah?” She said, words slipping out between a rapidly growing grin. 

Dina smiled back. “Yeah.”

She thought there was another kiss coming, but before there could be she heard (felt?) distant footsteps. They had the same pattern she’d heard stomp away at the party - Brad’s gait had become somewhat unique with his injury. Turning to watch homecoming king and queen be announced, she could only swallow the sudden crop of anxiousness that exploded in her stomach. He couldn’t do anything then, right? Right. 

Oh, how wrong she was. 

And just a moment before it happened, she felt a pressure bomb tick. It was that horrible moment before glass makes contact with a tile floor when you know that a crash is going to happen but can do nothing to stop it. Like that feeling at the diner, when Brad’s nose started bleeding, but five times closer and a thousand times more powerful. She saw the moment in painful detail. Brad’s hand coming too close to his body, his eyes a little more bloodshot than a moment before, his lips parting where the microphone began to hide them. A curve of glass the second it reached the floor, destruction when it was nothing but beauty, eerily reminiscent of Stanley Barber’s body hitting the polished gym floor. Thunder before lighting. 

Still, in her ears, she could hear the vitriol he’d spat. _Kissing my girlfriend._ As though he knew anything about Syd, about her, about them. As though he deserved a tenth of what Dina ever gave him. She could hear Syd’s tiny, soft sniffle. Dina’s own thousand thoughts praying for some teacher to intervene. Syd’s confidence leaching out of her, sucked away in a second, no smile in sight. She could almost hear her embarrassment, her anger, her sadness. Her _hatred_ of Brad for taking over everything else at that moment and Dina had to admit that she felt the same way. 

She sensed it, just as she had been able to for years. 

She heard, right in front of her, Brad’s head explode just before it really did. 

(A minute later, her only thought would be of Syd. Where did she go? Was she okay? What did she think happened? Maybe she and Stan would try to find out together. She had a feeling that they would.)

But right then, all she could do was press her hand to her mouth and try to ignore the warm feeling of blood on her skin. She didn’t believe what she saw; she thought her brain had made it up. 

A minute passed, and Brad still had no head, and blood was seeping her dress and pooling on the polished floor, a liquified version of broken glass reflecting the fluorescent lights of the gym. 

For the first time, Dina really fucking wished she could see the future. Sense it. Sense even a few seconds forward, past the overwhelming overload of activity in the gym - feet against floors, screaming, all kinds of emotions hanging in the air but mostly terror and horror. 

She lifted her head, just slightly, and locked eyes with Stanley Barber. He cocked his head to the side, and she stared back. 

They had something to do, right?

**Author's Note:**

> anyway, watch ianowt, stay inside as much as possible, stay safe and be sure to take care of yourself in these turbulent times. sending lots of love to all!
> 
> may or may not post a partner fic focused on stan who also has powers. if that's something anyone has interest in lmk! comment n kudos if you'd like to, and as always find me writing some more on the tungle dot com @a-secondhand-sorrow or just chilling @itstrulyastrangerthing


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